Topic: US-led forces kill top al-Qaida leader.

WASHINGTON - U.S.-led forces have killed one of the most important leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq, a Tunisian believed connected to the kidnapping and killings last summer of American soldiers, a top commander said Friday.

Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson said the death of the suspected terrorist in a U.S. airstrike Tuesday south of Baghdad, and recent similar operations against al-Qaida, have left the organization in Iraq fractured. “Abu Usama al-Tunisi was one of the most senior leaders ... the emir of foreign terrorists in Iraq and part of the inner leadership circle,” Anderson said.
Al-Tunisi was a leader in helping bring foreign terrorists into the country and his death “is a key loss” to al-Qaida leadership there, Anderson told a Pentagon news conference. “He operated in Yusufiyah, southwest of Baghdad, since the second battle of Fallujah in November ‘04 and became the overall emir of Yusufiyah in the summer of ‘06,” Anderson said in a videoconference from Baghdad. “His group was responsible for kidnapping our American soldiers in June 2006,” Anderson said.